Читать книгу Silenced and Sidelined - D Lynn D Arnold - Страница 21

Emotionally she experiences a sense of isolation where she feels disconnected from her peers (if she has them) and those she is required to lead. The word “isolation” refers to the idea of remaining alone. One is separate or apart from others. The viral nature of feeling silenced induces a sense that one is not worthy of being part of the whole. Participants in my research reference both their voice and their silence as creating isolation. I vividly remember my physician turned executive describe her leadership silencing isolation as forced internment. That’s a hefty metaphor! Internment is the state of being confined as a prisoner—more often for political reasons. Another executive who chose to retire at an early age from her executive role describes her experience this way:

Well I know what made me want to leave, it was the feeling of separation and loneliness. I didn’t really share how I felt with anybody because at the time I suppose it came up [as] shame. Now I would look back on it with some understanding. I think the feeling of separateness and isolation [is] that you can’t be who you are.

Another aspect of emotional distress is the sense of feeling traumatized by silencers. Here, I heard women use words like misery and mental abuse. Consider Lindsey, who was hired into a senior role by a female leader who vacated the position into a higher executive role. Lindsey’s approach to running the work was aligned with the organization’s mission, purpose, and values, but different than her female boss who held the role prior. She began to feel that all her leadership moves and decisions were measured against what her boss would have done. She felt strongly criticized and verbally rebuked for having a different style and approach but the intent to reach the same outcomes.

I kind of felt like I was going into abuse situations. I would wonder how I could put protections around myself. My husband—he just wanted me to get out. He would try to name it as domestic violence. I did not want to get out. I wanted to work my way through it.

This sense of trauma and abuse may feel extreme, but several women described it as something real but unspoken. They saw it not only impacting their leadership and role within the organization but also their sense of self at home and with their families. A nursing director in healthcare put it this way:

This mental trauma stays with you forever because I’m fearful; I don’t want that time to repeat. Even in this current role, I’m very cautious. I do use my voice, but I know when to silence it because I know that I don’t want to go back to that. It takes a long time to recover from previous silence and trauma.

Beyond the trauma, there is a sense of emotional vulnerability and anxiety that can lead to shame and depression. As one might expect, these emotions can lead to tearful outbursts that rarely are welcomed. Women described times they cried at work with regret and anger as they believed their demonstrations of emotion further weakened their ability to be seen as competent leaders.

I do not know a single person alive who relishes being in the space of this type of vulnerability. Cognitively, we know that vulnerability is needed for growth, but we prefer safety, assurance, and strength. Ultimately vulnerability means to be susceptible, open to attack, or being wounded. Vulnerability is a concept that has surfaced in organizational studies. There is research to suggest that managers feel a strong need to avoid embarrassment, threat, and feelings of vulnerability or incompetence. They may avoid anything that suggests weakness or that might raise questions about their current courses of action. The studies on management perception argue that leaders may silence their employees to avoid vulnerability.^[3] However, my research shows vulnerability differently; participants did not feel at risk with their employees as much as they did their peer group or boss.

For example, an executive working at a school district describes her experience after a male peer, who silenced her, left the organization. “I felt like as a leader; I was diminished. I’m a very efficacious person, and I can go back, and I can regroup, and I can get myself moving forward again. Even a year after he left, I was still unable to do that.”

A CEO I interviewed who felt silenced by multiple systems and relationships said this, “I’ve been in therapy every time I change a job and now consistently because I can get depressed pretty easy. . . . And I can’t let that happen to my spirit.”

Despite the source of silencing, every participant in my research described some aspect of feeling vulnerable when silenced. Many women cried during the interview as they recounted their experience. Their tears were an expression of their vulnerability, as well as the emotional pain they experienced. Thus, this overall sense of vulnerability goes beyond attempts to conceal a lack of knowledge or maintain competence. Rather, it is indicative of the viral effect of silencing.

As a reader, you may think that perhaps every single one of my research participants are sensitive women who tend to overuse emotional language and metaphors to exaggerate. I analyzed the language orientation of my contributors. I studied the transcripts to determine how many times they used cognitive oriented words such as “I think,” or “I thought,” or “I believe.” I compared that to the women who used more emotional language like, “I feel,” or “I felt.” Based on the text, 80 percent of them were more cognitive in their choices then emotional. I also found myself having to ask them to tell me how it felt. Their initial reactions were first to express their thinking and belief system. I had to specifically ask (sometimes more than once), “How did it feel to be silenced?” before I could get emotional responses.

Thus, we can put to rest the bias that women who experience silencing in leadership are more sensitive or emotional. This is not true. The focus on specific word choice gives insight into how cognition and emotion drive perceptions. Women did not always lean in with a strong feeling-orientation language that assumed an empathetic mind-set. Instead, the language choices they used suggested a strong thinking orientation (that we often expect from leaders), which implies a logical, practical, and critical-minded approach.